科學(xué)家長久以來在尋找人類大腦的解剖學(xué)差異,，以解釋男性和女性的認(rèn)知差異,，特別是在控制空間感覺和語言的皮質(zhì)區(qū)域,。
此前的研究已經(jīng)揭示出了兩性之間的神經(jīng)元密度和神經(jīng)細(xì)胞的其他小特征的差異，但是這些性別差異都和行為或功能沒有聯(lián)系,。在一份新的報(bào)告中,，Lidia Alonso-Nanclares及其同事利用癲癇患者腦手術(shù)切除的新鮮大腦組織解釋了男性和女性的神經(jīng)回路的差異。這組作者利用電子顯微鏡研究了這些組織,，發(fā)現(xiàn)在涉及社會(huì)和情緒過程和其他技能的顳葉新皮層中,，女性的突觸密度比男性低。這組科學(xué)家提出人們對(duì)男性和女性在突觸（兩個(gè)神經(jīng)元的連結(jié)點(diǎn),，它讓精確調(diào)節(jié)的細(xì)胞對(duì)細(xì)胞的通訊成為可能）水平上的解剖學(xué)差異的關(guān)注很少,。這組作者說未來還需要進(jìn)行研究從而理解這些差異如何影響腦功能。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推薦原始出處：
PNAS published September 8, 2008, doi:10.1073/pnas.0803652105
Gender differences in human cortical synaptic density
L. Alonso-Nanclares, J. Gonzalez-Soriano, J. R. Rodriguez, and J. DeFelipe
Certain cognitive functions differ in men and women, although the anatomical and functional substrates underlying these differences remain unknown. Because neocortical activity is directly related with higher brain function, numerous studies have focused on the cerebral cortex when searching for possible structural correlates of cognitive gender differences. However, there are no studies on possible gender differences at the synaptic level. In the present work we have used stereological and correlative light and electron microscopy to show that men have a significantly higher synaptic density than women in all cortical layers of the temporal neocortex. These differences may represent a microanatomical substrate contributing to the functional gender differences in brain activity.
